Aloo bortha links

The general has spoken: “let them eat Aloo bortha.” That is the advice given by Bangladesh’s top general concerning how to deal with the country’s rice crisis. To mark this historic and remarkable exhortation, I give below a recipe for aloo bortha.

1. Boil potatoes until soft. In the UK I find the Maris Piper variety to be best.

2. Fry onions and dried red chillies.

3. Set aside the onions and dried chillies to cool.

4. Add a modicum of the oil you have just used into the boiled potatos. Crush the chillies into the potatos, and mix the whole thing with the onions.

5. Salt to taste. Roll into fist sized balls.
Serve with rice, as the general has suggested, immediately.

And John Pilger’s defence of Mr Slippery Moudud Ahmed is made bortha of by Asif Saleh in CiF . But Asif old chap, could you not have used the space to talk about other things? I mean Pilger’s intervention is old hat and has been dealt with sufficiently. Why make unnecessary aloo bortha of that has-been from down under?

You are right. It should be vorta. The phonetics are still not right though. Because english speakers here in England don’t have that “ta” with tongue against the teeth sound that you and I would make but only the tongue against the roof of the mouth “ta” sound.

Actually, it’s “varta”. But who am i to correct your phonetically challenged typos? Ask any sanskritist and they’ll tell you. “alu” doesn’t sound like a sanskrit word, it sounds dravidian.

It’s not ‘rice crisis’ it’s ‘everything goddam crisis’ (bd is bracing for Jacqui Smith’s visit, and she wants bd to stop the terrorists before everything else). The price of hilsha has gone up. A poor chap somewhere in dhaka was asking for taka 5000 for two medium sized ones.

Still, what a lovely, lush and green, country is Bangladesh. My daughter said “some cars are really old like grandad”. Yes.